Broken Warrior
by leggo lover 99
Summary: I should have noticed and intervened sooner to put an end to this madness. But I wasn't strong enough. I'm supposed to protect them and yet here we are… "Dammit bro." I whisper to the pale face, "Why didn't you come to me?" I want to force my brother out of his funk like they do in the movies but this isn't a movie.. WARNING: Mentions of mental illness, attempted suicide and blood.


**WARNING** **: Contains subject matter which may be a sensitive subject for some. For this you have been warned.**

As I sit beside my brother's bedside, clutching his cold, almost lifeless hand in my own, I find myself wondering how the shell life got so screwed up. Think about it, we're not even twenty and already in life we've dealt with street thugs, ancient armies of ninja and aliens. What more does the universe want of us?

With a sigh and another glance at my brother, I am sad to say I know the answer.

The universe wants us to suffer.

I should have noticed. I should have intervened sooner and put an end to this madness. But I wasn't strong enough to. I'm supposed to protect my brothers and yet here we are…

"Dammit bro." I whisper to the pale face, with the lines etched around the eyes showing the stress he had been hiding under his mask – both the literal piece of fabric he wore and the calm exterior he always put forward. "Why didn't you come to me? Why you stay silent you stubborn asshole?" I want to get angry, to scream to shout, to force my brother out of his funk like they do in the movies, by screaming out my love and loyalty into his face until he realises the truth and we sink into a hug promising to protect each other.

This ain't a movie.

It's real life.

And that sucks.

Footsteps behind me break me out of my thoughts.

"What's the news, Don?" I realise my voice is desperate, pleading. Normally I'd cover it up with sarcasm or some gruff show of affection, but now I couldn't care less about my damn pride. Not when my brother almost died right in front of my eyes.

"It's not good." I chuckle darkly. You could say that again, genius. Donnie clears his throat and I can hear that he's almost in tears. "I found old blades under his bed and…" His voice cracks and I turn. Tears are darkening the mask under his eyes but it's what's in his hand which stops me dead.

A piece of paper.

A jisei.

A traditional Japanese death poem.

Dammit bro, what the shell caused you to do this?

I want to say it was unexpected, sudden even, yet deep down I know that this exact outcome was building up over a long period of time. We were aware and we went about it all wrong.

Taking the piece of paper from his trembling hands, my mind began pulling up various snippets of things I should have paid more attention to over the past couple of years. Things which if I had pushed further, I may have gotten through to him in time.

He had been suffering, and I failed to help him.

What sort of a brother am I?

 _We were on the couch, just the two of us at what had to be around midnight. I'd gone purple dragon hunting with Casey and he'd been waiting for me when I got back, bruised but smiling. Grudgingly he agreed to listen to my tale of something funny one goon did._

 _"So Casey grabbed this guy from behind, and before the punk could lash out, I'd –" I cut myself short, my brother seemed miles away. "Hey! You listening, bro?" He blinked and turned back to me, a guilty smile on his face._

 _"Sorry, Raph. I zoned out there…" I raised an eye ridge. In the dim light he looked really pale and gaunt, not the powerful body of a warrior I was used to seeing. His eyes especially, they seemed hollow._

 _"You alright?" I asked, receiving a smile in return._

 _"Just tired. Been a busy day."_

 _I let that drop, and continued my story of how the purple dragon had taken himself out by running away straight into a wall. As I spoke, I kept a careful eye on my brother, watching his reactions. He laughed at the right places and his smile was consistent with my own. But as I looked to his eyes I realised something. His eyes were dull, not a hint of humour within them. He was faking it. Faking laughing and being happy._

 _But I ignored it. Finished my story and we went our separate ways to bed._

 _Over the next days I kept an eye on my brother, when we were relaxing or training, but the hollowness of the eyes wasn't visible again._

 _Maybe it was because he was tired, maybe he was just having a bad day. Maybe I just imagined it._

 _I let it drop, and never spoke about it again._

 _Another day, another fight. It was part of who we were, it couldn't be avoided._

 _Keep four teenagers underground out of sight for long periods of time and you're bound to have tension. I wanted to go out and he wanted me to stay in._

 _"You just like bossing people around don't you!" I had yelled at him, beyond caring at this stage._

 _"It's my job to keep you safe!"_

 _"What if I don't need a baby sitter?!"_

 _"That's not for you to decide!"_

 _"You know what, screw you!"_

 _"Oh real mature, Raphael." And I snapped._

 _"And bossing people around is being mature? You just enjoy being in charge don't you, Splinter Jr. You think you're so much better than everyone else, that we're just your little minions ready to jump if you tell us to! News flash, brother, WE. DON'T. NEED. YOU!"_

 _At these words, my brother froze, his eyes widening for a fraction of a second before he silently muttered,_

 _"Fine." And he ran off._

 _"Wait…" I tried, but he was gone. Nearby Donnie and Mikey watched on._

 _"Nice going Raph." Mikey snapped as he charged after Leo. Donnie just shook his head and followed suit._

 _Following that, Splinter had a long talk with me and Leo, telling us to sort out our differences and then locked us in a room together until we talked._

 _It was Leo who started._

 _"Do you really hate me?" I remember how pathetic his voice sounded, how he sounded so desperate for an answer as if his life depended upon it. Funny, I never thought it would matter so much._

 _So after confirming that I was a thoughtless hothead and I didn't hate my brother, we had talked, and he had admitted he was stressed. He felt worthless and wanted to prove himself as a worthy part of the Hamato clan. He also admitted he was full of self-doubt and needed to feel as if he truly belonged._

 _I begged him to open up like this more often to me, we both cried, he promised he would accept my help, and I – like the fool I was – believed him._

 _We hugged and left the room friends once again._

 _I asked him most days how he was – how he really was._

 _He said fine._

 _I thought I'd got through to him, that he was telling me the truth._

 _Life continued on._

 _One day I overheard him talking with Mikey. They were looking through some of Mikey's old comics and discussing the possibility of the characters being defeated the way they were._

 _"Poison isn't really that effective, is it Leo?"_

 _"Depends on the poison and how fast you get treated for it. Also on your immunity." I heard him say. "There's natural poisons like hemlock which can kill through paralysis or manmade ones like dimethylmercury which kills slowly over months and only shows symptoms months later. A good homemade poison is elemental mercury as it's in glass thermometers. Despite it not being harmful to the touch, it's deadly when inhaled. Fast and effective."_

 _There was a shocked silence._

 _"Dude. I don't know if I should be scared or impressed… How'd you know so much about that?" A pause._

 _"Let's just say I've done my homework."_

 _Harmless enough, at the time I thought it was merely research of classical ninja techniques. But now… It seemed less innocent._

 _And then the damn burst a couple of months ago. When sparring in hand to hand combat, I grabbed his wrist. He flinched. I felt blood under my grip._

 _I dragged him out of the dojo before Splinter could react._

 _"It's nothing." He'd argued._

 _"Shell, it's not. You have to speak to someone, bro. Someone more qualified than me!" To this I got an eye roll. "Splinter. You always get advice from him!"_

 _"Oh yeah. Hi, dad. I'm depressed, harming myself, so can I be trusted to continue leading my brothers. What's that you say? Dishonourable? Wow, I didn't know." Sarcasm dripped form his voice._

 _"Donnie." I tried. "He could get you some pills or something?" At this Leo barked a laugh._

 _"And who else should I tell, Raph? The Foot? Maybe they'd be nice and give me a holiday to get my head together?" Now his eyes were practically overflowing with spite. I'd never seen him this angry._

 _"You're ill." I snapped back, "Not weak, ill! You need help!"_

 _"You're wrong." He turned away, cradling his wounded wrist, "I've kept it to myself this long, I can work this out myself."_

 _"But can you." My voice was barely a whisper to his retreating back. He paused, looked over his shoulder and replied,_

 _"Yes."_

 _He disappeared to his room._

 _I did the only thing I could think of._

 _I went to Donnie._

 _And together we told Splinter._

 _Then life changed._

 _"YOU TRAITOR!" Leo practically screamed at me, "I TOLD YOU I WAS FINE!"_

 _I grabbed his wrist and yanked the wrappings off, revealing a mass of scars and open wounds._

 _"THIS. IS. NOT. FINE!" I yelled back. "You want me to stand by and watch my brother, my best friend die?"_

 _At these words he froze. I thought I was getting through to him._

 _"Am I really, Raph?" His voice was a whisper. "Am I really you're friend?" I blinked, confused._

 _"Of course I am. Why –?"_

 _"Then you should have trusted me."_

 _Over the next weeks, as Splinter and Donnie both tried to support our brother, Leo gradually became more violent, lashing out, screaming, and becoming unpredictable. His swords were confiscated, he swung from hostility to passiveness, Mikey became frightened at the dramatic changes in Leo's attitudes and we warned April and Casey to keep their distance for the time being, so not to cause more stress._

 _Eventually we withdrew from him slowly, hoping that by giving him space he could work on himself without feeling the need to pretend life was fine around his family. We tried rational talking. We tried emotional pleas. But nothing worked._

 _Leo was trapped in the failures he saw in his own mind, ignoring us and only seeing what he wanted to see._

 _I didn't blame him. How could I?_

 _Despite everything he was my brother and I loved him – mushy as it sounds. I just waited for the moment he would let me back to his side and accept my help._

 _He dealt with a lot of heavy stuff. I understood, I really did, no matter how many times we butted heads over it. He was forced into a position of leadership at a young age, his childhood stolen form him before it had truly begun. Nobody deserved it. But honestly, I believed he did enjoy it at some moments, he did love training despite what it now seemed like, but by this stage, he could not find the old pleasure he used to._

 _We tried to help._

 _We failed._

 _Then he tried to kill himself._

 _Don's computer picked up something leaving the sewers at speed. Leo wasn't in his room. His signal was heading for the highest building in New York._

 _We panicked._

 _Donnie stayed to get the med bay ready if needed while me, Splinter and Mikey all rushed to the building, desperate to get Leo before he could do anything stupid._

 _I got there first._

 _And then it was just the two of us. He, the once fearless leader, standing at the edge of the rooftop, the glow of the city reflected in his empty eyes._

 _Under different circumstances it could have been considered beautiful._

 _"Please…" I begged. "We need you…"_

 _He turned, and for the briefest moments I saw a flash of the old Leo as he smiled._

 _"I'm sorry." Was all he said, and he fell back off the side._

 _With a scream, I plunged after him, angling myself so I could fall faster, unravelling my grappling hook from my belt as I fell. As soon as I levelled with my brother, I wrapped an arm around him and threw the hook, halting our plunge suddenly, pulling at my shoulder._

 _"I was so close…" Leo whispered in my grip, almost limp, his body appearing to have given up fighting, "Why couldn't you let me…?"_

 _"Because I don't want to see you throw your life away." I muttered as I began to haul our shells up the rope, "I want you to remember that as long as there's a breath in your body, there is hope."_

 _After that he was silent._

 _He'd fainted. Be it from the stress of the situation, the shock of falling or the fact he probably hadn't been eating enough, Leo passed out._

 _Mikey and Splinter were waiting at the top and helped me over the side then together we journeyed back home._

Blinking back the assault of memories, I look at the piece of paper. The haiku simply reads:

" _The paths for my life_

 _now begin to cross, snaking_

 _around tattered hearts._ "

My breath hitches. So he was serious. He wanted to die.

I turn back to my brother and hold out an arm. Donnie almost collapses into my embrace, so desperate is he for a hug, his sobs echoing through my chest. " _Paths of my life_ …" What the shell could it mean, why did fearless have to be so damn cryptic about everything?

"Have you shown Mikey yet?" I mutter. Don looks up at me through watering eyes.

"Not yet, I thought Sensei better see it first." I nod in agreement then turn back to the poem.

"Any ideas what it means?" I can practically see the gears turning in his head.

"I'm guessing a divided duty. He always tries to be the perfect leader and a good brother. Those could be the two paths he's on about… Tattered hearts… Well, we can guess that, can't we?" He shoots a look to our brother's heavily bandaged wrists. "How could we not see him suffering, Raphie? We knew it was bad… But to…" He can't finish.

I shake my head.

"I've been asking myself the same thing, Don. I've been asking myself the same thing…"

I would like to say that once we had all read the poem we had understood him better. I would like to say that upon waking Leo looked at our worried faces and realised we emphasised with him and he understood how we only wanted to help. I would like to say we began to get through this mess as a family, and are slowly moving back to normalcy.

But with things like this there is no end.

I'm not one for this emotional crap, but I'm gonna put it this way.

This sorta thing changes you. Maybe for the better, maybe for the worse. You can never tell.

You start as one person before, and that person is destroyed by the suffering experienced, but that doesn't mean there's no hope. All I see it as is that my brother has to build himself back up again from the foundations. He can make himself a new person, one who has suffered but also learnt how important it is to enjoy life and those around.

I don't see a failure like he does, I see a warrior, trying – despite everything – to hold on.

But he doesn't.

Not yet at least, but I have hope for him.

I believe in my brother's strength and his determination.

I believe – no – I _know_ he can overcome his demons.

Now he just needs to believe as well.

And know that his family will be waiting for him when he does.

 **Sorry, not what I planned to write and post this weekend, but I wasn't inspired for 1056 Hours and I needed to write somethingg a bit darker. I wanted to experiment with a first person P.O.V for Raph - something I've never done before, so hope it's okay...**

 **But there is a serious message in this. We headcannon that Leo suffers depression or tries to kill himself, but it's no laughing matter. I know way too many people who have suffered or are still suffering from this horrible illness (which at the end of the day it is. Depression is an illness, not a weakness, remember that) so people need to be more aware of such conditions and understand how to support others. This story is for those who know people who have experienced depression or have battled it themselves.**

 **Please leave your reviews.**

 **LL99 Out.**


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